Mistakes to Avoid When Bible Journaling

Learn mistakes to avoid when Bible journaling to help you achieve the most beautiful art entries you can.      

If there is one thing I know for sure, it’s that we learn from our mistakes in life. Mistakes are an essential part of life no matter how much they stink and really frustrate us at the time. We can definitely look back later and see how they ended up being helpful.

Now I will be the first to say that I hate making mistakes when it comes to Bible journaling. There really is no way around them. Just brace yourself if you are a perfectionist like me and don’t worry.

At times the mistakes end up being a gorgeous piece of art or entry that I actually love and will learn a new technique. At other times I change the way I do a certain technique to make it better.

Today I have a couple of examples to show you of mistakes to avoid when Bible journaling that will hopefully help you and warn you beforehand. Now you will know what to look for and avoid.

Mistakes to Avoid

Watercolors: Do not weigh your brush down with excessive water.

My very first entry in my journaling Bible was illustrating creation in Genesis chapter 1. I wanted to do some watercolors with lighter colors at the top for day and darker colors at the bottom for night.

I have used watercolors before but never on paper similar to pages of a Bible. I used different shades of colors and blended them together using a paintbrush.  My advice is to not use an excessive amount of water when starting out.

I actually had too much water on my brush trying to get the color thinned out and not too bright for a more “watercolory” look. Where I went wrong was not first practicing on a page in the back of my Bible to see how it would affect the page.

I urge you to use extra pages in the back of your Bible that do not have scripture on them to practice due to some pages being thin compared to what you may be used to working on. Dipping your brush in water and then the color, if this is your technique, works best if you brush some of the paint and water mixture onto a scrap piece of paper to remove any excess before painting your Bible page.

The image above is practicing with acrylic paints on scrap paper before painting in Bible. 

The page crinkled some from the moisture of the watercolors but not too much that it really bugged me. I actually didn’t mind the texture to the page after it dried because it helped the entry to stand out of my Bible showing easily where passages have been illustrated.

The problem that you will run into is the color bleeding through to the back of the page. The backside of my page now shows the yellow that I used especially. Thankfully for me, this was my first entry so there wasn’t an entry on the back that was ruined.

The bright side though is that I can use the color that came through and incorporate it into another entry on the opposite side. Usually there is a fix to any mistake.

Color Shine Spray: Less is better.

I have the Heidi Swapp color shine spray and absolutely love it! The spray is perfect to use for just about anything crafty. To learn more about it if you have never used it, check out my post titled “A Growing Collection of Bible Journaling Supplies” that describes it in more detail.

The color shine spray is in the bottom right corner of the image above. 

I love the extra splash of color and design that it adds to a completed entry in my journaling Bible. But I have been known to get carried away because it’s so much fun to use.

In one entry particular, I used a combination of a pink, yellow, and a blue spray. I love the colors but the pink was the first color I sprayed and went on entirely too thick. Because of the richness of the pink, it is hard to read some of the scripture. It is important to me that I am still able to read all scripture no matter what art medium I use.

It sprayed on too thick due to holding the spray too closely to the page. Again practice and keep a reasonable distance from the page. Be sure though to always cover the opposite page you are not working on and any work space around you to prevent the spray from messing up anything else.

The yellow is especially translucent and the blue would have been hard to read through except I had learned my lesson and didn’t spray it on so thick.

Rough Plan your Page Before Starting

Now I am not saying that everything should be exactly planned and perfect before starting an entry. Part of the fun is just starting and seeing where it goes and how you are inspired.

If you are using lots of different alpha stickers or writing a larger amount than usual, I do encourage you to have a rough sketch or plan of your page in order to avoid running out of space. I have done this before and found ways to cover it up so there always can be a back up plan, but it does help to plan ahead.

On this page, I started using alpha stickers and then decided to change to rubber stamps for part of the words. I used a stamp that was too large in order to fit the entire word “stand” without overlapping any scripture. I fixed it with some washi tape and more alpha stickers. I love the way it turned out in this case, but it never hurts to plan some aspects of your entry ahead of time.

I certainly hope you have found these mistakes that I have made in the past helpful and ways to avoid them for yourself. If you are like me then you have some degree of perfectionism that can make Bible journaling difficult if you aren’t careful.

The great part is that every entry doesn’t have to be perfect. I wrote a post encouraging you to embrace Bible journaling mistakes that you may find helpful if you are having a hard time getting past the perfectionist in you.

Above all enjoy your art and Bible journaling. Do not worry about mistakes that you have made or will make in the future. The same applies for your life too. Love to y’all and God bless you!

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